Description
The Tamiya "Rufe" is one of Tamiya older kits. It doesn't quite hold up to todays standards for fit, but overall builds up into quite a nice kit. The kit comes with a beaching cart and two figures. I believe the kit is still in production and readily available at most stores.
Construction
Building the kit was something of a challenge. First off, I'd get rid of all the locating pins. They seem to be off slightly and getting rid of them seems to make it simpler to assemble. The general fuselage fit is average. You'll be doing some filling in front of the cockpit and underneath near the tail. The big problem in building comes in the wing roots. There is a HUGE gap at both roots. I filled with plastic card stock, but If I had to do it again, I'd fill with a slow gap filler and zap it. It would be much simpler and probably not ruin as much of the wing detail.
The outer floats also don't fit real well. They are well hidden when the kit is finished, so it's probably not a real big deal, but worth mentioning.
The general decals that came with the kit were ok, the hinomarus were way too thick and didn't snuggle down very well. You may nead solvaset for these decals to conform.
The cart went together well, although I'm not real positive about the painting instructions for it.
Summary
Overall for the $14 price of the kit, it's worth the money to have one in you collection. It won't be the best kit you ever built, but it also won't be the worst.